The music mix with which the FC Bayern soccer players celebrated their big step towards the championship was wild. Between the club anthem and the Neil Diamond classic “Sweet Caroline”, Ballermann hits kept echoing from the Munich players’ dressing room. The team from the Isar celebrated the 1-0 win over VfL Wolfsburg and the lead in the Bundesliga.
The Bayern team overtook Lower Saxony with six games to go. “The win is very important to us. It’s unusual that we’re not chasing after them anymore,” said Bayern international Lina Magull.
The Munich party started immediately after the final whistle. The substitutes sprinted from the bench to the center circle and fell into their winner-scorer, Georgia Stanway. The Englishwoman converted a hand penalty in the 84th minute and raised new Munich hopes for the fifth championship title in the club’s history. One point is the lead over the wolves. “Now they’re chasing us,” said FCB player Klara Bühl before the crucial weeks.
Clear dominance
The women from Munich had dominated the previous leaders for almost the entire 90 minutes. The fact that the guests were able to keep the game open in terms of results for a long time was thanks to their brilliant goalkeeper Merle Frohms. Time and time again, the national goalkeeper thwarted Bayern’s attacks and steered the ball to the aluminum at the last moment. “We had a very large dominance in the game,” said Bühl and attested to her team’s “playful superiority”.
Coach Alexander Straus even went one step further and spoke of the best game of the Munich team under his leadership. “The game was important for German women’s football. It was a great show,” said the Norwegian enthusiastically. However, he does not want to be blinded by the advance to the top of the table. “Of course, our starting position is better than this morning. But everything is open.”
VfL now hunters
While the women from Munich were still celebrating in their dressing room, the women from Wolfsburg crept through the aisles with their heads bowed. A preliminary decision in the title fight was missed. In fact, Tommy Stroot’s team no longer has it in their own hands. “We’re Hunters now and we’re embracing the role with a vengeance,” Stroot said, fighting back immediately after the loss.
In three weeks there will be the next duel of the top German teams in the semi-finals of the DFB Cup, which could also meet again in the semi-finals of the Champions League. “It’s great that we have two teams in Germany that challenge each other like that,” said Straus. The rivalry has its roots in 2013. Since then, the champions have come exclusively from Wolfsburg (7 titles) or Munich (3), the game has mutated into a north-south summit – now with the advantage for the Munich team.
